De Vegetarische Slager (The Vegetarian Butcher) is a Dutch vegetarian food producer. The owner wanted to become a vegetarian but he missed meat's taste and texture. He spent years searching and developing meat-like vegetarian products, eventually founding The Vegetarian Butcher to market his products. Since its launch, The Vegetarian Butcher has expanded to 3,500 stores in 15 countries.

The Vegetarian Butcher has focused extensively on product quality which allows The Vegetarian Butcher to take advantage of a market niche that targets both vegetarians and meat lovers. To maintain the quality, each product has a separate production line. Expanding product lines while ensuring the meat-like experience is an operational challenge.

1.)Why do you think it took years for founder Jaap Korteweg to begin marketing his meat-like vegetarian products?

2.)Why is quality control so important for The Vegetarian Butcher?

3.)What are some of the operational challenges that The Vegetarian Butcher faces?